A new John Solomon article today, based on an interview with Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska, is essentially confirming a May 2018 article where it was presumed that Oleg had hired Christopher Steele at the same time Steele was working with Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS to write the Trump dossier. Here’s the interview:

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The report on the FBI contacting Oleg Deripaska in September 2016 for help to structure a narrative of Russian involvement in the Trump Campaign via Paul Manafort has some ramifications.

♦In 2009 the FBI, then headed by Robert Mueller, requested the assistance of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in an operation to retrieve former FBI officer and CIA resource Robert Levinson who was captured in Iran two years earlier. The agent assigned to engage Deripaska was Andrew McCabe; the primary FBI need was financing and operational support. Deripaska spent around $25 million and would have succeeded except the U.S. State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, backed out.

♦In September of 2016 Andrew McCabe is now Deputy Director of the FBI, when two FBI agents approached Deripaska in New York – again asking for his help. This time the FBI request was for Deripaska to outline Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort as a tool of the Kremlin. Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money. However, according to the 2018 article, despite Deripaska’s disposition toward Manafort he viewed the request as absurd. He laughed the FBI away, telling them: “You are trying to create something out of nothing.”

Was the DOJ/FBI trying to use Deripaska to frame candidate Donald Trump? Was this part of their 2016 insurance policy?

John Solomon reports that Deripaska wanted to testify to congress in 2017, without any immunity request, but was rebuked. Who blocked his testimony?

In 2017 Oleg Deripaska was represented in the U.S. by Adam Waldman. Mr. Waldman was also representing Christopher Steele, the author of the Dossier. Waldman was the liaison Senator Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman) was using to try and set up a secret meeting with Christopher Steele. {Text Messages}

As you can see from the text messages (more here), the House Intelligence Committee wanted to interview Deripaska. However, based on their ongoing contact and relationship Deripaska’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, asks Senator Mark Warner for feedback.

If Deripaska was blocked from testifying to congress, it was obviously not from the HPSCI (Nunes Committee), but rather by the Senate Intel Committee, Mark Warner. Why?

Adam Waldman and Oleg Deripaska

Attorney and Lobbyist Adam Waldman represented both Oleg Deripaska and Christopher Steele. This does not seem accidental. Especially given the confirmation that Deripaska contracted Steele to represent his interests in a U.K. case.

Did Robert Mueller omit any mention of Oleg Deripaska from his 2017 Manafort indictment purposefully? Was Deripaska’s denial of any information about Manafort actually Brady material that Mueller and Weissmann intentionally kept from Manafort’s defense team? And/or was Robert Mueller hoping to hide his prior professional work relationship with Deripaska?

Now that we know Deripaska was employing Chris Steele; and now that we know the FBI was aware that Deripaska was employing Chris Steele, this set of questions from Tom Cotton to FBI Director Christopher Wray has additional context.

Agree whole heartedly concerned citizen. These investigations and the investigations of the investigations remind me of the very old children’s book where the tigers chase a little boy around a tree until they turn into butter. That’s what I expect in this situation I.E. nothing but a bunch of butter.

Wray of the FBI reminds me of Bremer who was the point man from State in Iraq…nice “rep ties” but we got what out of that event? In other words, two birds of the same feathers…lots of smoke and mirrors, way too many phony smiles! Empty suits. Swamp dwellers, good talkers but when push comes to shove they go on vacation…every time!

It is a VERY legitimate question and one that a lot of people have been asking for a very long time. I, and others, are tired of hearing about more and more criminal activity but never seeing anyone actually charged with anything!

But doesn’t the contrast of the rate that Mueller had raids, indictments, trials, sentences – – versus the IG investigation drip drip – no raids, no indictments, nothing. A report – that if like the last one will be a whitewash. ALSO – what happened to the Nunes criminal referrals. Answer – NOTHING.

Still waiting on the full JFK Declass……. even when the Top Secret coroner’s report was released last year it was ignored by MSM. It only blew the fake Warren Report out of the water. Who cares? The Deep State murdered a president and got away with it. Nothing has been the same since. Presidents are figureheads, some more than others, but All tethered by the cabals ruling in DC.

Unfortunately, I have to agree. Have you seen thre evaluation of the content of the USMCA? President Trump campaigned against TPP, but much of what was in TPP that people were against is in the USMCA. It creates several supranational bureaucracies that subject US law to them.
According to the John Birch Society, it also puts us on the hook for things the UN has been pushing for decades such as the Law of the Sea Treaty. Not good at all!

Manafort was indicted for white collar crimes like tax evasion. The Mueller Report clears Manafort of “colluding” with Russia, as the Deripaska interview shows that Manafort’s work with Ukraine’s leadership, and their political party, the Party of Regions, would preclude any attempt by the Russian government to recruit Manafort. Manafort was trying to move Ukraine toward the EU, which was Obama/Hillary policy, and going to and from the US Embassy in Kiev all the time, dutifully reporting his progress. He was working for USGOV to avoid being prosecuted on his white collar beefs. Mueller needed indictments, so they slam-dunked the Manafort indictment. FBI had been after Paul Manafort for many years, who ducked prosecution by working for CIA and State Department who exploited Manafort’s position with the ruling circle of Ukraine and other politicians in other countries who would hire Manafort as consultant and lobbyist. Manafort was a CIA contractor.

Although I know you are providing no links to support your statement I beleive you are most likely correct. Horse trading prosecution for setting up political enemies or engineering public falls seems to be standard fare at FIB now.

What I write about Manafort is commonsense analysis of his past history. He was trying to move Ukraine toward the EU and away from Russia. Yanokovych, the President, was ready to sign a trade agreement with EU, but backed out. Manafort worked for that, and that was Obama/Hillary policy. Someone in Manafort’s position, and he’s been in that position with other governments as a consultant, is going to attract CIA attention. He worked undercover for Pakistani ISI once, back when ISI and CIA were closer. There has to be a reason why Manafort was not prosecuted years ago, even though the FBI warned John McCain not to hire Manafort or Rick Gates in 2008–they knew Manafort was guilty of white collar violations then, but did not prosecute him. Working for CIA and State Department is one good explanation for that.

Like the CIA, I have “high confidence” that my assessment is accurate. If they can do it, so can I.

2 Here's NYT on what Manafort did in Ukraine: "Mr. Manafort pressed Mr. Yanukovych to sign an agreement with the European Union that would link the country closer to the West" – i.e. away from Putin https://t.co/IE4TmGGRmkpic.twitter.com/9FQpNPyLum

Manafort was a government asset and all government assets are considered the property of the government, by government leaders, and are expendable. Manafort, Page and, probably to a lesser extent, Papadopolous were all government assets, at one time or another. And, all were used by the Obama Administration to provide access to the Trump campaign for the purposes of surveilling the campaign.

Not exactly in alignment with Hillary and the Democrats. The Party of Regions was the Russian-aligned party that was overthrown by the Hillary/Democrat-aligned party. They were out to get Manafort because he was helping the Party of Regions.

The Chalupas were certainly after Manafort, but the lack of past prosecution for someone the FBI warned McCain not to hire in 2008, 11 years ago, indicates and inability to get a prosecution for SOME REASON. Working for CIA and State Department (Manafort was in and out of the Kiev Embassy a lot doing “something.”) is one good explanation for that.

Manafort is not a hero just because these guys took back a get-out-of-jail free card.

Roger Stone proportionately got biffed around about as hard as Manafort. Guys like them generally have their lawyers called and they come in and surrender. Everyone in that business knows that. Back 30 years ago, old timers would not have liked SWAT tactics like that. Don’t know about today.

Is it possible the FBI could not have obtained the necessary evidence to indict Paul Manafort without hiding such exculpatory information as Derapaska’s response to the FBI? And when taken with FBI’s intentional concealment of knowledge about the shady black ledger, and using the media echo chamber to gin up probable cause, it seems to me there should be fodder for an appeal, especially if the illusion of collusion and receiving cash payments was used to obtain the search warrants.

Did Mueller charge Manafort with collusion with Russia to affect the outcome of the election?

NO.

The information is NOT exculpatory of tax evasion, money laundering, and other white collar crime charges. Manafort cannot get out of those convictions by the release of this information. It was being kept from the general public, and reflects the fact that the collusion story is made up nonsense. That is why it was not released, plus the fact it was not relevant to the charges brought against Manafort. Won’t help him. Manafort apologized for his violations at sentencing according to reports.

The things you think of once something like this comes up. Did they do a “Net Worth” on Manafort as part of this investigation? If they charged tax evasion based on Black Ledger earnings that are false, that charge is in trouble. By doing an accurate net worth accounting, the Black Ledger income should not have reflected Manafort’s net worth. Those cash inflows would not have shown up if there were no Black Ledger cash inflows.

The problem is no one but us political junkies and the poobahs and media outlets inside the Beltway really give a damn about this sort of BS. Unless the disloyal opposition is removed or at least badly chastened, they will use their castle of plausible deniability (well, SOMEONE thought he might possibly be in cahoots with a furriner, and he put it down on paper, no less!) against every opponent from here on out. It’s tired and I’m late.

you’re absolutely right. However, I would not so much call it plausible deniability as much as contextual, alternative interpretation/explanation. They’ll have a generally viable, exculpatory rationale for everything they’ve done

That works in a compliant media. It doesn’t mean a thing in a court of law (yeah I know). The only time I din’t mean nuttin, I din’t know it was rilly rilly illegal, I dint mean it applies, is in sentencing

I expect Hillary will have a very serious fall as she goes into her kitchen where the refrigerator is stocked with her favorite white wine. The fall will be the beginning of the end for her. Then again, I may be dreaming.

Wishful thinking on the one hand, unfortunate avoidance of prosecution and justice on the other. HELLary must be prosecuted, convicted, and jailed. She is the poster-child for multi-tier justice, political/criminal privilege, and all-round “evil gets away with it by being eviler.”

I have long believed that Satan takes care of his own, until they cease to be useful to him. HELLary is such a one; but I think her usefulness has or will soon be exhausted. Once that happens, it will be an avalanche.

Big Picture: This is the effluence coming downstream when we put amoral grifters, RINO time-servers and Islamo-Communist radicals in the Oval Office for decades at a time. We elected them, and even re-elected them as they looted, neglected and subverted our government.

We can’t keep electing real presidents every 30 or 40 years. We’ve got to up our game or next time, they won’t even try to hide the Coup.

You are absolutely correct. We have to vote smartly. It pains me greatly that we elected Trump and even gave him a GOP majority in the House and Senate, but then threw away the majority in the House! Ugh. Can’t make that mistake again.

During the primaries, either weed out the RINOs in the GOP primary or totally f up the Dem primary, whichever is more strategic. During the general election, vote straight GOP, period.

Wrong……I love President Trump and I would gladly protect him with my own life. But, he has made some absolutely awful decisions, most likely from intentional awful advice from “someone” close to him. President Trump supported Luther Strange, the McConnell-approved corruptocrat, that the people down there despised and loathed.

Maybe he was trying to make nice with McConnell, who knows? But supporting the worst candidate in the whole race is what lost that seat, and the republican establishment openly supporting Jones in the election against Moore. The strongest candidate then was a congressman named Mo Brooks.

Brooks voted 100% in support of President Trump, but McConnell hated Brooks. It looks like Brooks is an honest Patriot and conservative. Whoever told the president to endorse Strange is a traitor!

100% spot on! I am an Alabama resident voter and I can tell you what you said here is absolutely correct. Trump endorsing Luther Strange cost us the seat. Strange lost tons of support when he did a back-door deal to secure the Senate seat appointment for himself in return for getting the ethics investigation and impeachment of the Governor suspended (so the Governor could also then appoint a new Attorney General who would obviously have lots of sway over his own case). We are TIRED of the Swamp — and Strange just epitomized what we were hoping to drain. See https://newrepublic.com/article/140577/shady-ascension-luther-strangehttps://newrepublic.com/article/140577/shady-ascension-luther-strange

Mo Brooks, while initially Never-Trumper, like so many others, quickly got on the Trump Train and hasn’t looked back. Had Trump endorsed him, I can say unequivocally, Brooks would have won. HE was the best choice, but frankly, had Trump just elected to not endorse anyone, the results might have been different. People who trust Trump, did not agree with his endorsement of Strange because they don’t trust Strange. And those people who didn’t vote for Strange, voted for Roy Moore or Mo Brooks….which led to Moore winning that primary for two reasons: 1) because of name recognition, and 2) because Brooks had been a Never-Trumper. That was enough for myself to choose Moore. But again. Had Trump ENDORSED Brooks, I would have gladly voted for Brooks over Moore, whom I also had some reservations about, even before they scandal.

I have no doubt that this “set up” of Moore was planned for release to get maximum effect, after the Primary and before the General. And it worked like a charm.

Those who previously voted for Moore because they could not bring themselves to vote for a Swamp creature, even if Trump endorsed him, and who were suspicious of a little known Congressman who was previously a Never-Trumper, were now left with the prospect of being forced to vote for someone in the General election who was accused of vile and scandalous behaviour with children. Well do the math. Many voters just got disgusted and stayed home. This is the Bible-belt after all. Moore did not help himself when one of his first answers to the claims was “I got her mother’s permission”. When he said that, that was all she wrote. Many just stayed home.

If the Republican party wants to WIN this Senate seat back, they need to get on board and support Brooks if he is running again. I hope he is. And before trusting anything McConnell says about a candidate, Trump should have someone check the pulse of Alabamians down here about that candidate. It’s not that we don’t trust Trump. It’s that we don’t Trust McConnell and establishment RINOs.

Indeed so; and the ‘internet troll’ thing was mostly home grown, though not local, to boot. That was the nastiest, slimiest, and dirtiest election of my life (60+). That reminds me, I have not heard much about Moore’s suits, either way, lately.

I hate to say this but you’d be surprised at the Alabama voters who are Alabama football fans who wouldn’t vote for Tuberville. Sounds shallow I know, but less informed voters would use that as a reason actually to NOT vote for him. People down here take football pretty seriously.

Your condescending and insulting comment is factually wrong and uncalled for towards the people of Alabama. Thank you for your support of our president; I can fully appreciate your desire for more effective and mature leadership in Canada, but you’ve got your facts wrong about this.

President Trump’s “advisors” served him very badly indeed, not only during this specific instance, but in others as well.

removing the RINO’s and uniparty sympathizers in the legislature is the biggest challenge. The only way to make this happen is for Trump to pull out all the stops and go “scorched earth” on these subversives. Attack, Attack, attack and then attack some more.

Sometimes you cannot win when there is an over-abundance of fraud. We need our politicians to get a handle on the fraud that the dims used and perfected in 2018. Otherwise, we may see a repeat of the 2018 wins for the dims and they keep the House and take back the Senate. We could even lose the WH if the fraud is great enough.

Yet so-called “conservative” jurists keep a wholly non-controversial citizenship question, that is supported by UN census standards and used in virtually every other nation on the planet, off our census with the sole purpose being the overcounting and consequent empowerment of illegal aliens. We are in deep trouble. Maybe trouble so deep we can’t vote our way out of it. That, at the very least, is how important PDJT’s mission and our participation in it is.

“We” just think we’ve been electing presidents, sinators, and CONgresscritters… we haven’t. Regardless of the system being rigged as in electronic tampering etc. just look with open eyes while following the money.

NO ONE is allowed into the big club of “who cares about America” without having boatloads of money behind them to even start up a “campaign”. A “campaign” at this point is just a charade to fool the sheople with through lies and damned lies.

We have far more to do than simply “vote” better and the entire sham of “government” we live under is also GLOBAL in scope. We literally need to learn how to be the government so that there is even an able body of Americans for President Trump to turn the power back over to when successful. Do we not believe he will be successful?

The view from ground level is seriously out of focus and opaque. “They” keep us hacking at the branches but now we have an ESG President we DID elect going for the roots of the tree of evil totalitarianism. If we can’t find the patience to let his work unfold over two terms then I doubt we are working toward keeping his work intact on our end once he is gone from office.

But we should be patient and we should be even half as busy as he is on our local levels and in any capacity we can be. Don’t we all know for sure that the sick among us are even busier…

It’s easier to give a 2 sentence reply whining about everything. If you can’t have enough patience to at least wait for the IG report, then you’re a snowflake.

Having said that, there will be a lot of back room dealing to prevent indictments. They may throw a low level flunkie like Strzok under the bus, because he doesn’t have enough dirt on anybody else. Comey and Brennan are guilty of conspiracy to leak classified information. They are the ones who should be held accountable, but I don’t think they’re going to see the inside of a prison. Everything else is window dressing.

The fact that they’re not all in jail, the fact that a significant percentage of the public are not only unaware of the failed coup and 5+ years of domestic political spying, the fact that many of those same people believe that President Trump is guilty of unspecified crimes, the fact that Nadler is milking the Mueller Report to keep the hoax alive…

All of this points to a degree of success on the part of Mueller and the conspirators.

Their real success on the part of the Democrats, may be coming from an unexpected direction byway of a backlash resulting from an investigation, after investigation without the promised results – prosecution.

Remember the effect on the MSM and the Democrats when the Russian conspiracy proved to be false. Now, put this right before a major election.

So….maybe in 2024, or later – if we are still the United States of America – some of these traitorous criminals who work against our Constitution and us, will finally get a slap on the hand or something…??

Not even a slap on the hand. They are plowing full speed ahead. Gateway pundit has a report on how the Democrat party in California is putting illegals in party leadership positions. No citizenship question on the Census. The constant attacks from every direction on our great President, his family, his businesses. Silence from the DOJ. No different than when Sessions was there.

I don’t have a good feeling about the incident this morning with Pence canceling his trip. OANN reported that he and the President did meet this morning. Strange silence.

I appreciate all the great reporting here but most people I encounter don’t have a clue and more freightening could really care less.

Can’t emphasize enough: Dossier was put in FISA to get COHEN in FISA by false fact to get DERIPASKA linked to team Trump.

Side note: The Kavalec note that no Miami consulate…the dossier given to buzzfeed does not call it a consulate. Only that embassy people were going to Miami. I think this is because Steele was working with a guy who was sanctioned and could not even go through a Russian ‘consulate’ vs the summary language talking about embassy Russians going to Miami (for the pension work arounds that relate to Cohen)

So the side note point: Steele was losing track of his clients ‘goals’. He said to State…things are going on in ‘consulates’. He said to Fusion…things are going on in Miami via the Orbis memos to Fusion.

All still makes one wonder who was directing Steele and I still think it was the UK on behalf of Brennan.

Definitely the UK, in partnership with the soetoro/krooked fools. Folks should let them know on twitter just how silly they were to think it was in the bag… be sure to sign it with a hearty TRUMP 2020!

More Waldman weirdness: He was also representing Julian Assange. Waldman met with Assange the first time on Jan 12 2017. He was negotiating with the DOJ on Assange’s behalf to avoid releasing the Vault 7 CIA information. His contact at DOJ? Bruce “I still have a job at DOJ” Ohr. Coincidentally January 12 2017 was the same day Guccifer 2.0 and the Shadow Brokers made their retirement announcements.

Yes..and Chris steele was mi6 director at the time it was trying to nail Julian Assange for Cable gate and smear Assange trying to link him to Russians over Climate gate, but it wasn’t Russians it was the Turks. This was 2009!..They Uk and US had 7 years to dust off old reports cobbled up from dubious sources ala GPS Fusion
Excerpt from a really well sourced essay..just came outhttps://contraspin.co.nz/freeing-julian-assange-part-two/
Suzie
In the course of researching this article, I stumbled across a major discovery that augments that: the false notion of WikiLeaks being a front for Russian intelligence isn’t new – it has been pushed by media since 2009.

It turns out the circulation of the WikiLeaks-Russia myth was a tried and true diversionary, smear tactic that was simply regurgitated in 2016.

Julian Assange believed that UK intelligence agencies were behind the pushing of that narrative, and he was publicly stating so at the end of last decade.

He wouldn’t make such claims lightly, and other emerging facts support his suspicion.

A Walk Down History Lane

Julian’s old stomping ground, the Chaos Communications Club in Germany, holds annual hacker conferences in late December, at which Julian had made several consecutive years of rousing appearances. You can see his 2008 appearance here. You can see his 2009 appearance here.

By December 2010, only the (fired) WikiLeaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg appeared, ostensibly to promote IMMI, the Icelandic media initiative on which WikiLeaks had collaborated with then-Icelandic Pirate Party’s Birgitta Jonsdottir and others. However he used his appearance to make blithe disparagements of Julian, pushing the message that support for WikiLeaks and support for Julian shouldn’t be one and the same thing, and to promote his own WikiLeaks-competitor initiative OpenLeaks, (which spectacularly imploded, failing to ever get off the ground).

One of the most interesting pieces of viewing I stumbled across, was a short clip from the Q+A at the end of Julian’s 2009 CCC appearance. In it, he was asked about the WikiLeaks releases that spiralled into the famous UK scandal known as Climategate. His answer stunned me, and made concrete something I’ve known for years, but which is the opposite of the narrative advanced about WikiLeaks in media.

Russiagate started in 2009 and was cooked up by the same malignant intelligence agencies whose activities Julian has consistently exposed.

Trump, Climate Change and Russia Russia Russia

WikiLeaks’ November 21, 2009 release of the Climatic Research Unit’s emails, data and models, sourced from a database leaked on the internet containing a major UK university climate research project dating back to 1996, caused a huge stir.

Initial reporting on its contents contained claims of scientists manipulating research findings and methodologies, conspiring together to alter conclusions and generally behaving unethically.

While disputed by the scientists involved, who said their communications were being taken out of context, and by the findings of myriad official investigations into the matter, the release was largely viewed by the climate change skeptic community as validating their skepticism and their own existence. By critics, WikiLeaks was depicted as having taken an anti-climate change position by publishing the cache at all.

This is the earliest case in which I’m aware of the fact of WikiLeaks having published leaked documents, being extrapolated by observers into the assumption that WikiLeaks was taking a political position on one side or the other, of an issue.

In an attempt to quell what was becoming a global uproar, corporate media around the world, led by UK media, turned ClimateGate into an opportunity to advance their own geopolitical interests: in chorus, they depicted the WikiLeaks release as being both perpetrated by, and for the benefit of, Russia.

I find it puzzling that the counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign was too “sensitive” (TM James Comey) to be notified to the Gang of 8 until March 2017, but apparently not too sensitive to be discussed with Putin’s pal Oleg Deripaska in September 2016.

The subtlety of such judgements on who to favor with sensitive counter-intelligence information is beyond me. Plainly I am destined for the infantry rather than counter-intelligence.

What we are seeing exposed is a good old fashioned ESPIONAGE caper that has many PERPETRATORS of a CRIME against THE PEOPLE of The United States, a felony federal CRIMINAL FRAUD CONSPIRACY done under “color of authority”.

Actually the servicefolk in my family are mostly Navy, so out of proper family loyalty I can only offer you a respectful nod 🙂

As for myself, I would be utterly hopeless at actual counter-intelligence. Lots of hard, detail-noticing, unglamorous slog. Painstaking organisation, conscientious application. Nope not me at all.

But what currently passes for couner-intelligence at the FBI ? I’d be brilliant at it. Spinuendo, finding pretexts to support my pre-formed conclusions, heavy politicking and peddling conspiracy theories, while ignoring actual foreign spies. All for a good salary and a government pension. Yup I can see myself shining my pants on that sort of office chair all day long. With a good lunch break, naturally.

Speaking of “spinuendo”….excellent article. Someone could use their 5 minuted on Mueller just dissecting this statement from the Mueller report, which this article does:

Mueller writes that in May 2016 “Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of [a] foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

Which part of the message didn’t you get? They are liars, corrupt rent-seekers who don’t care about the security of our country and use their positions inside the governemnt law enforcement and security apparatus to their own advantage.

Coincidence… that Deripaska sues Manafort for about the same amount of money supposedly spent on Mueller’s effort to get the CIA gun runner out of Iran? Just saying that all went down in about the same time frame. Small world.

Deripaska was probably expecting a Green card (U.S. Permanent Resident) in return for all of his favors to our government.

Apparently the FBI and State Department were jerking Deripaska around for years.

I’ve got the same question as you on the $25 million.

My guess is that the Obama administration, in the midst of nuclear negotiations, decided to give up on Levinson and other U.S. citizens being held in Iran in order to not rock the boat or simply didn’t want that issue to interfere with Obama’s legacy of an Iran deal.
Thus, any official U.S. government action to free Levinson was off the table and the FBI went off the books to black ops in order to free their man and needed Deripaska’s contacts and money to fund the operation.

And I don’t understand what the difference is from Iran-Contra, if you remember that. Getting our intelligence operations funded “off the books” (even the black ops ones) by a Russian oligarch strikes me as a violation of several federal laws.

It very well could have been illegal.
But since I’m sure the entire operation has been classified at the highest level we probably won’t see the truth until total declassification somewhere around 2062.

And since it was all done under a Democrat, that means the media fifty years from now won’t report on it.

They didn’t want to go through the legal process of trying to justify the funds required. And probably also thought the op might have better chance of succeeding if the Iranians thought that the Russians were behind it instead of the US.

How does Putin not like him? If he’s a confident of, or close to, Putin. No one says it’s in the past. And where does he live? And why a green card — he’s worth a fortune. How was he in NY for the FBI interview if he couldn’t get a visa. And if the answer is he’s a US asset — you don’t think Putin’s spies would know that and he would be sleeping with the fishes now!!

Not sure why Oleg gave the interview. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. It was like pulling teeth for Solomon.

I wonder if behind the scenes, Nunes had anything to say to Waldman and Warner about working behind his back. I would be po’d if I [Nunes] sent a letter to Waldman and he went to my political rival [Warner] to find out how he should handle, which appears to be blow me off.
It’s still slimy that the GOP on the Senate Intel gave Warner a pass on that whole deal.
The Assange/Comey angle, too

I can’t really conceive how to even arrange/keep track of all these various thread/subplots. Hope Barr/Durham are better than I

Also touted by Al Gore. This “trading” means simply that those that use “less than the allotted carbon footprint” can sell or trade that to any company that pollutes like crazy, thus becoming carbon neutral on both ends. The trick is to find what the expected carbon footprint will be, then make a ton of money. The already energy efficient get paid handsomely and the polluters do not have to invest in the technology required to reduce their carbon footprint.

Wray at this Feb. 2018 hearing declined to endorse the Comey [fired the previous May for insubordination] statement of alleged Steele Dossier being “salacious and unverified.”

The $30 million Mueller used was to try and verify the Dossier. Wray was all in on that too.

Beyond that, Wray tried to say nothing else in Feb. 2018 testimony, while sharing that he’d “heard of” Deripaska — which on face value can mean Wray was all in on Mueller’s obstruction of justice — towards Manafort — and towards Trump — assuming what The Hill just reported on Derispaka is true.

“I think if we start exposing sources and methods, we are setting a dangerous precedent,” Wray said in July 2018. [Wray does not expose Derispaka.]

“I do not believe special counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt. I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that I’ve known to be a straight shooter,” Wray told NBC on July 18, 2018.

Right after McCabe’s firing, Wray, according to NBC, said on March 21, 2018: “I want to be careful about what I can say about the process” germane to McCabe’s dismissal, Wray said.

“I do not consider Director Mueller to be on a witch hunt,” Wray told Sen. Lindsay Graham during his confirmation hearing in August 2017.

I want to know what Wray told them “behind closed doors” about all this! Did he come clean? For some reason, I doubt he did, or surely by now we would have a better feeling that Wray is helping us and not fighting against us.

I think Trump “tends to trust”, until he is proven wrong… which, is not a bad thing if it is within the realm of business… being in charge of this Country is different… BUT, I believe he is learning and improving… this all takes TIME… and Americans are impatient!

From what I understand, Trump got Wray’s name from Rosenstein.
The president then nominated Wray after he interviewed him based on that recommendation. That’s a pretty routine occurrence in the West Wing for making decisions on high-level appointments.

Of course Trump didn’t know who was who or what in D.C., being a true outsider and all.
I suppose he could have done better if Trump had spent twenty years in Washington and knew all the players and their reputations but then he wouldn’t have been an outsider and probably would have never been elected president in the first place.

There is a PDJT Tweet that brags about Wray’s credentials shortly after he was nominated. I have a memory that he mentions his pedigree which at the time made me want to vomit as it was a deep state resume.

Yup, President Trump brags about and flatters all of his recent hires.

The president had to pick a new FBI Director, so he chose one.
The man is talented in many ways but he’s not a psychic or clairvoyant.

I’m starting to think Trump should hire some CTH denizens off a few limbs to vet his personnel choices.
With all the armchair generals with infallible gut feelings and 20/20 hindsight around here, he can’t possibly go wrong on future hires.

If you haven’t already, I really recommend people reading the Bruce Ohr interview. He lays out his connection to Steele – he was his unofficial handler as well as his connection to Glen Simpson of Fusion GPS. There ‘s a part about Oleg in there as well.

I remain deeply troubled by Barr’s positive remarks regarding Rosenstein and his continued support of Wray remaining in charge of the FBI. Barr is walking on a very thin line despite of all his actions and rhetoric about getting to the bottom of “spying”. My gut says ‘trust Barr” but I have to admit I fell for the “trust Sessions” initially until it became clear that Sessions was a fool that got played or worse.

“…positive remarks regarding Rosenstein and his continued support of Wray,,,”
Don;t forget Gina Haspel who was running the London branch during the ensuing entrapments.If anyone knows anything about the mysterious Mr. Mifsud… surely it’s her.

I believe the reason is that if they dig too deep, their precious FISA court could be in jeopardy. And deep state will simply live on.

Barr’s comments about Rosenstein are way less complimentary than they appear on the surface. A careful look at the comments and a very literal view of them makes it hard for me to disagree despite the fact I think Rosenstein is spineless scum. Barr says Rosenstein was dedicated to the DOJ. I can’t disagree. He was extremely dedicated to covering up embarrassment for the DOJ.

It is extremely conspicious that Barr never says Rosenstein served the country or the people. I took the time to look at DOJ statements made for retirements of high ranking and even low ranking officials and it is very unusual that this phrasing never was uttered by Barr. The founding documents make it very clear that the government is supposed to serve the people and this is almost always included in official statements even if it is just to give the pretense. Maybe Barr is just careless with his words or maybe not.

Maybe Sydney Powell might write about DOJ injustice and said russian oligarch might get a dishonarable mention … only in relation to Weissman not providing Manaforts team exculpatory information. But that’s as far as it would go…if at all.

What is unnerving to me is that the D.C. uni-party types that make a living off of other peoples money are able to make a career out of political life.. dem or Republican, if they are not the currently elected party they slither under a rock till their designated party is in control. This guy Johnathan Winer was Deripaskas attorney in the 2000’s when Winer was an attorney at Alston Bird. Previously he was in the State Department for William Clinton. He then went to the Alston Bird to hang out while Bush was in office, and then back to State when HRC negotiated a landing place after conceding to Obama.

Winer feed info to the FBI, and perhaps Christopher Steele, from Sid Blumenthal and Cody Shearer. Shearer’s brother in law is Strobe Talbot. Who was in the state Department under Bill Clinton and worked with Johnathan Winer while their. Oh yeah, Strobe Talbot, Stef Halper and Bill Clinton were all at Oxford together around 1970. All this is on the web and stinks of incestuous conspiracy. Yet it is all just circumstantial.

The political class hangs out at NGOs, silk stocking law firms or lobbying firms just waiting to “represent” the American voters. Our Deep State is more apparatchik than the Russian’s. I think five years in D.C. then get the HELL out!

People pointing out the failures of Mr. Wray… especially his refusal to proved requested documents, and continued FBI coverup… should also be questioning Gina Haspel… and how she was appointed head of the CIA.

She was over the London office during the time of Halper and Misfud. Devin Nunes wants info on Misfud, and surely Haspel knows more about Misfud than most of the people involved.

Maybe the question should be, who recommend Gina Halper for CIA director and how was this person related to Peter Strzok? It’s being reported that Peter Strzok was a double agent for the FBI or was it the CIA. References to CIA seems to be a reoccurring throughout this story.

Hopefully I got all of what the Russian is saying; subtitles would have been helpful.

From the sound of it, Deripaska is laughing at the FBI guys apparently thinking Russia and Ukraine are the same entity. He’s also wondering why — if they thought Manafort had broken some law — the FBI did not go through proper channels to develop evidence. Of course, we know the answer: they were looking for information to justify spying.

The more I read up on this… I have to say I’m disappointed in John Solomon’s lack of info when it comes to the link between Oleg Deripaska and rino McConnell. It turns out he had been working on a deal to get a Rusal Aluminum factory in his state… after the treasury dept lifted sanctions on Rusal with the stipulation that Deripaska reduce his stake in the company to below 50 percent and lower his voting rights to below 35. The agreement also requires the companies to report any contact between Deripaska and company affiliates, including members of the board.

GEE… DO YOU THINK THERE’S A CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN SEEING MR. DERIPASKA TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS?

I’m going with a GOP Controlled Congress is the ones responsible for rejecting his request to testify.

Are you kidding me? We can’t get the DOJ and the FBI to hold people to legal accountability when there have been clear violations of the law and we are going to get something out of this relationship between Mueller and Deripaska? Don’t even bring up Brady as a potential liability for the Mueller team, we all know how that will end up. No self respecting deep state judge will ever hold anyone accountable that they have worked with or will work with. I’ve read Powell’s book, Brady is going nowhere. Beyond all this, let’s settle for something basic, that will offset the 16th and assist the President. How about one indictment, just one on any of the numerous code violations committed by the FBI and DOJ, can we get JUST ONE before my 17 year old son graduated from College!!!!!